Overwatch Servers to Receive Update, High Bandwidth Option Included for PC

Overwatch‘s servers are undergoing some changes. The game previously had a high bandwidth option during the game’s beta that Blizzard promised would be implemented in the full release, if the response was positive. Blizzard has announced through a community post that the option for high bandwidth will be implemented across all game modes in the PC version within the coming weeks:

“When we implemented the ‘High Bandwidth’ option to Custom Games back in beta, we also noted that—if the feature performed well and players responded positively to it—we would investigate adding it to other games modes. We’re holding to that promise and are currently in the process of rolling out high bandwidth support globally for PC. This process may take a few weeks for all regions, but once fully deployed all games including those in Quick Play and Competitive Play will be running in high bandwidth mode by default.

So what does that mean? In Overwatch, our high bandwidth option adjusts the game’s client update rate (the frequency at which your client gets updates from the game server) from 21 updates per second to 63 updates per second. This reduces the amount of time between when you complete an action and when your client hears back about the result, which in turn will help make the game feel more responsive.

Since we know that not all internet connections are equal, we’ve also added in tech that will automatically and adaptively scale down your update rate if we find your connection can’t keep up. Similarly, because high bandwidth servers (as the name suggests) will increase your bandwidth consumption, we’re also looking to add an option to self-limit your update rate in a future patch.”

While it will take time for these settings to be included globally, Blizzard has said they are currently in the process of rolling out the update to PC users. As for PS4 and Xbox One versions, players will have to wait and see whether this option could be made available as the company has stated, they are “exploring” how to bring this to consoles.